#so my memory is hazy w/r/t 2016

[folerdetdufoler]

I don't have any friends who watched skam or fandom friends, so I don't have anyone I know to talk about this. Sorry I'm dumping this on you! But I think you're really smart, and feel you might have some insight. Do you ever feel that watching skam in real time screwed with the way you relate to the internet and screens? I guess some people who got into it maybe were already on tumblr a lot, but I wasn't and I got OBSESSED and think it really messed up with my attention spam and boundaries -

- with my phone. I was on a really bad place when I started watching skam and used it as a way of coping with life, and I'm only now (I know, like 4 years later) realizing the affect it had on my habits. It depresses me a little bit I don't know why I'm telling you this, I guess I'd like to hear your opinion? If you have one? Or your experience? If you don't feel like answering, please don't. I really like your internet presence!

oh man, i had to think about this for a while. on one hand, i think it really depends on where you are mentally and emotionally for a show/piece of media to have that kind of effect, and on the other, an effective, immersive experience will reshape your relationships like that. i definitely was in a very low place when i found skam. i was five months away from burning out hard and quitting my career & IRL social circles when i found skam, so i was definitely desperate for some kind of escape. skam fit that need really well by being something that felt real that i could chase every single day. i used to do social media for my career, so i already had a horribly unhealthy relationship with tumblr & twitter. i was constantly scrolling and posting on work accounts at any time of day or night. i used to brush it off as like, ~i’m a human, my campaign strategy is not having a strategy!!!~ except what it really was was not having boundaries. so i had wired my brain to always be refreshing for updates anyway, to interact in real time, and skam provided a hit of something (that wasn’t tied to my work performance) every day. i was the perfect target for it.

and it is depressing. back then it just felt like this beautiful reality that i could escape to every day. even if the show wasn’t airing, i could still log on (akfjksjf as if i ever logged off) to see internet friends and talk about that beautiful, shared reality that was so far from my own. fandom was like, the same exact thing that i was doing for work, so it still felt good to be exercising those skills, but i didn’t have the pressure to perform. i got validation, though (and i still do), for participating in the show, and i’ve convinced myself of its pure goodness, of its virtue, because i’m not doing this for money. i…validated my own coping mechanism, my escape, as one does when they really need it. so i am sad that i still need skam and that i’m aware of my dependency on it and that i’m twisting my dependency into an identity that justifies it.

since it’s been so long since i started my obsession my perspective on my relationship with it has probably colored or faded over the years. but i think something similar happened with me and tiktok. i really got into it mid-2019, and the (my) skam fandom was definitely fading then. so tiktok was filling the growing content hole for me, letting me scroll for hours and finding new people now that my tumblr & twitter feeds were slowing down and veering off to different interests. whereas i went deep with skam, i was now going wide with tiktok. but both ways were an intensity that just devoured my days and flooded my brain. they let me stop thinking about me because i could always think about something else, seek out or wait for something else, the next hit. my phone can always provide that relief.

so i guess…i always want to give skam the credit it deserves for being a great show, and that is beyond my personal obsession with it. if i had discovered it later than when i did, i think i still would’ve gotten into it, because it’s an Objectively Good Thing. but that means i would’ve found something else back in 2016 and thrown myself at it, because i was desperate for the distraction and my boundaries were nonexistent. so like, skam didn’t cause these problems for me because it’s skam; i let skam cause these problems for me because i needed it to. and over the years i’ve convinced myself that they aren’t problems because in the moment i feel good. i feel like i’m learning and creating and contributing by leaning into this obsession; i’m chasing something, not escaping.

ugh i feel like i lost the original plot of your ask. i’m sorry if this made you feel worse for any reason. if i stop to think about what i’m still doing here, why i went so hard for skam years ago, then yeah, it’s depressing. i don’t want to talk about why i preferred living a norwegian teenager’s life every day instead of my own. but at the same time i could point a finger and land on three other people who can’t take a shit on the toilet without being able to scroll through their fyp for twenty minutes. this is just how we live now. it’s how we cope.